You might be happy to know this is a shorter piece than my other entries in the series. If you want to read from the beginning I recommend you start with my prologue or my arrival in Indianapolis.

Exhaustion has set in. Not with typing this out, no, that’s been good for making concrete so many wonderful memories, but a 07:00 start at Salesforce HQ Indianapolis for breakfast is quite challenging. And the hotel is fully booked the following night, so late check outs aren’t available.

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With a bit more artistic license I show that I’m still up for some fun. Actually these photos are from the previous day, although without Jurn being around to help me, I would have been there rather longer than anticipated!

This looks more impressive in the photo – you can’t tell that there was just 3 or 4 rows of seats with people looking on – but I was there, seeing it being taken!

At 08:00 Marc and Ivanka join us again to hear more inspiring stories from fellow Trailblazers. Salesforce also signed up to train 1m workers – this was the reason/excuse for the entire gathering. Being honest, such pledges don’t really work for me; I like to know the nitty gritty details, but I’ve met the people at Salesforce that are working to fulfil these pledges. It’s good news as it means Trailhead continues to be here to stay and hopefully more resources will be pumped in; Salesforce are keen to get more administrators and developers into the ecosystem, that is 100% for sure.

And then we start to call it a day. Well, after a second or third breakfast at the café alongside the building. It’s been exhausting and my fitbit is not happy with me! I honestly don’t know how I survived, but my body was kind to me and saved the inevitable cold for the following week.

After that breakfast (for our whole table, hasten to add).

I still manage to sneak into Five Guys and have a “standard” milkshake that is 600 calories for $3.99. Only in America. But divine.

I’ve not been able to get a photo of me climbing the the 330 stairs to look out from the top of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument – perhaps we were all too exhausted; the view was wonderful of course. In the meantime instead I’ll treat you to evidence of why I’m not allowed to drive a car, and why people are surprised that I even ride a bicycle. This was taken on the Tuesday evening.

And then it was off to the airport – takes Cameron for the drop-off – and more networking, with Astros visible at most departure gates!

Epilogue

What do you think the quickest transfer time is at Newark New York airport, from one terminal to another? I can reliably inform you, that it’s around 20 minutes. Thanks to air traffic control restrictions and then Lightning(™), my 3 hour connection disappeared and I barely made the last plane of the day back to Europe, including booking onto a new flight! Maybe I had worked off those 600 calories after all.

What’s more to say? I met many great people (and its worth repeating, I decided against name dropping everyone that I met, and surprisingly still remember the names of), made new connections, saw some amazing things, regretted that not all my Ohana friends could be there to experience it with me, and cross my fingers that I may have such an opportunity again in the future.

Thanks to the Communities Team for seizing the opportunity and putting on this entire event within a three week time window, from your first notification. I hope you are proud of what you achieved, and further potential already demonstrably unlocked. #TrailblazerDay

P.s. More crowd-sourced photos on Google or your can experience our journey via Twitter. And if you want to share this post with anyone, probably best to start at the beginning: https://naturallyiq.com/blog/trailblazer-day-part-1/

Want more personal insights? I try my best. You can subscribe to this blog (there’s a link somewhere on the side), or follow me on Twitter (the Ohana’s not-so-secret networking tool) or LinkedIn. And I’m passionate about the Community and Community Groups, should you want to reach out and discuss anything like that with me directly. Any errors, and lapses of memory, are my own 🙂